Clay School is honored to host a Broom making workshop with Poliana Danila
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Explore the ancient craft of broom-making in this hands-on class with fiber artist and broom maker Poliana Danila! You’ll work with natural, black, and dyed sorghum to create a beautiful 16-inch broom that’s both functional and artistic. Whether you use your creation as a sweeper, a display, or a musical instrument mounted proudly as an art piece on your wall or mantle, it will be both useful and uniquely crafted.
Poliana’s Biography, and Journey:
Poliana is an educator, broom maker, and fiber artist who enjoys living in the Hudson River Valley, NY and loves working with whatever the plants gift her, and everyone. Originally from Romania, Poliana watched her parents and grandparents working in the gardens, teaching in school and spinning/weaving rugs with the wool from their sheep.
She has Bachelor’s/Master's degrees in Landscape Design / Horticulture from Romania, the Netherlands, and the New York Botanical Garden and she has had the privilege to take weaving, broom making, knotting, and plant dyeing classes with different well-known, international artists at fiber studios: Textile Art Center in Brooklyn / Manhattan, Fiber Craft Studio in Spring Valley and other Art Studios.
From Poliana
Since I was a child I have found that working with my hands, with natural elements, fibers, plants, stones, and water, as well as gardening, cooking, knotting, and weaving, brings me the deepest peace and healing. Brooms are essential to one's home. I remember vividly my grandmothers using the besom made of twigs and my mom using large goose or duck wings to sweep the fireplace hearths. When I sit down to make or create something, I become more embodied, and the stresses of trying to just simply be in this modern industrialized world begin to fade away. In these moments I can feel the way my ancestors would sit, pray, sing and laugh together while doing this work. I can see the magic and beauty that can be woven into our everyday tools and materials and how that deeply gives life to our spirits. My two girls, Sophie and Thea, forage for my broom sticks in our forest or on the Catskill aqueduct, which they follow by a session of carving. A handcrafted broom can open/close ritual circles and keeps an old art alive. The horsehair that I use for brooms comes from several Native American gatherers. They collect expired animals who have either become victims to roadkill, starvation in the winter months, died of old age, or were hunted for food. The Native Americans hold all animals in high regard and believe all the parts of the animal are useful for many purposes. Broomcorn (Sorghum bicolor) originally comes from Africa, but can be grown here in the States and in South America. Ixtle, also known by the trade name Tampico fiber, is a stiff plant fiber obtained from a number of Mexican plants, chiefly species of Agave and Yucca.
What do I want to say with my art? Celebrate the earth, the plants , the humans, the marks people make on the world. Support and Treasure the work done by hands, small scale, the eccentric and ordinary as everything is made out of love, creativity and caring.
